FARMINGTON – Award-winning poet Tracy Smith will be the final reader in the University of Maine at Farmington’s 2008-2009 Visiting Writers Series.

The reading will be held at 7:30 p.m., on Thursday, April 9, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center. It is free and open to the public and will be followed by a signing by the author.

Smith’s passionate poetry speaks of her touching life experiences and for the unfortunate children of the world who cannot speak for themselves. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, such as Boulevard, Callaloo, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Gulf Coast, the Nebraska Review, Post Road, West Branch, and anthologies Poetry 30, Poetry Daily, Autumn House, and elsewhere.

Her book, “The Body’s Question,” (Graywolf Press 2003) was awarded the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize by Kevin Young. Her second book, “Duende,” (Graywolf Press 2007) won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Additionally, Smith is the recipient of a 2004 Rona Jaffe Writers Award, a fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and a 2005 Whiting Writers Award.

Smith received degrees in English and creative writing from Harvard College and Columbia University and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University from 1997-99.

She was raised in Northern California, and currently teaches creative writing at Princeton University.